December 01, 2011

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Ron Paul's gleefully vicious video attacking Newt Gingrich yesterday may have surprised some Republicans who basically like both men, but it's rooted in a fifteen-year old relationship in which Paul has been, characteristically, typecast as the purist against the compromising Gingrich.

In 1996, Paul was a former Congressman and onetime Libertarian Party presidential candidate. Texas's sprawling, exurban 14th District was represented by a Democrat whom Speaker Gingrich had lured to cross party lines, a classic inside play. Campaigns & Elections reported in June 1996.

A median Texas politician representing a microcosmic district, [Rep. Greg] Laughlin decided to go with the flow — provided Speaker Newt Gingrich made it worth his while. A deal was struck whereby Laughlin switched parties in return for the Ways and Means seat he had been counting on before the Democrats lost power.

Gingrich, the magazine noted, had earlier smacked Laughlin as "a Clinton clone," but now he came to campaign for Laughlin.

"I believe it's very important that Greg wins the primary. That sends a message to other dissatisfied folks who are tired of the liberalism of the Democrat Party that our door is open," he was quoted as saying.

Paul, meanwhile, ran a typically unfettered campaign. One tagline: "Congress is the one place Greg Laughlin shouldn't be serving time."

Paul denied Laughlin a first-round knockout then won in the runoff. And so perhaps it's no surprise that Gingrich, to his utterly outsider camp, embodies the corrupt inside.

"The history of Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul is long," a senior Paul aide wrote in an email, aiming to drive that contrast. "Ron is a person and public servant who, whether you agree or disagree with him, is guided by his values. The conflict between the two has always been one of a public servant guided by principles, Ron Paul, and a career politician, Newt Gingrich, that does whatever is personally or politically expedient at any movement in time."

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